Xi, Putin video on ‘living to 150’ dropped as Chinese TV pulls permission

After Chinese state media withdrew legal permission to use the footage and demanded its removal, the Reuters news agency removed the video that depicts an exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping about the subject of organ transplants and living 150 years.

According to a written request from China Central Television’s (CCTV) legal team, Reuters violated the terms of its agreement and criticized the “editorial treatment applied to this material,” leading the news outlet to remove the footage from its website on Friday.

In a conversation that was recorded live on a microphone on Wednesday, Putin and Xi discussed organ transplants and the possibility of human life as they walked in Beijing alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“Biotechnology is developing at a rapid rate. Human organ transplantation is possible continuously. As the Russian leader and Xi walked toward Tiananmen Square’s rostrum in Chinese, the interpreter said, “The longer you live, the younger you become, and you can even become immortal.”

According to Xi, “some people believe that people will reach 150 years old by the year 2050.”

A massive military parade in the Chinese capital to mark the 80th anniversary of World War II was being led by a delegation of more than 20 foreign officials.

The Reuters video of Putin and Xi’s conversation was filmed and licensed by CCTV and made into a four-minute video that was distributed to more than 1, 000 global media clients.

Broadcasters and social media users alike shared the unusually candid exchange between the major world leaders.

The letter from the legal representative for CCTV stated that the “editorial treatment” of the material “resulted in a clear misrepresentation of the facts and statements contained within the licensed feed.”

What specifically did CCTV object to, according to the letter?

Reuters removed the video from its website and issued a “kill” order to its clients, claiming that this was because it no longer had the right to publish the copyrighted material.

The news agency, however, defended its position and said it is confident in “the accuracy of what we published.”